The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for allowing participants in a program, such as an incentive, loyalty, frequency, affinity, retention, performance improvement or award program, to redeem points or other currency awarded to the participant by the program. In particular, the present invention relates to real-time or near real-time point redemption during a point-of-sale transaction.
Some prior redemption systems are not instantaneous because there are delays from the time an rewards fulfillment request is made to the time when the requested rewards are awarded so that the member receives the requested rewards. In addition, many such programs require the redemption system to have rewards in inventory in order to provide instant rewards.